


buried in your bones

by agrestenoir



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming of Age, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27965585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agrestenoir/pseuds/agrestenoir
Summary: Master Fu is attacked while seeking out the next holders of the Ladybug and Chat Noir Miraculous, left on crumbling cement stairs by the Seine. A panting Adrien, running away from home on the first day of school, finds the older man shortly after and calls for emergency services.Adrien doesn’t know what became of Master Fu or the rest of the Miraculous afterwards, smoke to the wind just like his mother, but he does know that day kickstarted the best days of his life. He wouldn’t change anything about it.Being Chat Noir, Paris’s only superhero, is what he was born to do.(In which Adrien is a Chat Noir without a Ladybug, desperately jugging his personal and hero lives, as he falls in love with Marinette and hunts for his missing mother.)
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 11
Kudos: 125





	buried in your bones

**Author's Note:**

> A story featured in the Adrien Agreste zine, "Silver Linings".

Dawn breaks over the horizon, brilliant golds and reds burning the sky like fire, and the clouds are every shade from pink to purple. Chat Noir rests against the spire of Saint-Etienne du Mont, casting shadows against the gold stone of the cathedral, munching on a pastry with a coffee in hand, content and relaxed for the first time in a long while.

Adrien has many duties in life—perfect son, honor student, good friend, and superhero—so there’s usually no time for trivial things such as peace and quiet. He does his best to try though, establishing a routine that allows for a handful of moments like this one, where he can escape for a few minutes to enjoy a post-patrol breakfast and the beauty of the Paris sunrise.

There’s something ethereal about Paris in the morning, all calm and birdsong. It reminds him of how things used to be: his mother, who would sit atop the window seat in the sunroom for breakfast with a paperback in hand, dog-eared and worn; his father, smiling as he sketched on the sofa; and himself, playing with the parakeets in their cage, whistling and chirping as if to greet the day. 

It’s all gone now—his mother, the parakeets, father locked in his study—only a memory that grows gray and fades with each passing day. Paris in the morning is all he has left: when there’s no akumas or disasters, just a sense of serenity that blankets the city, where he can finally think and breathe freely.

It’s a lonely life—being the only superhero in Paris.

*

Emilie Agreste disappears on a cold morning in early December.

Last seen on the steps of the Agreste mansion on her way to work, she’s dressed in a white pantsuit and wrapped in a black peacoat, snowflakes sticking to blonde curls that burn silver under bright sunlight.

Just before she leaves, she presses a kiss to Adrien’s temple, long and lingering. “I’ll be back soon.”

He doesn’t think much of it, just mumbles a goodbye and steals a quick hug, and watches his mother walk out the front door and never come back.

When the police come to that same door hours later, Adrien recalls three things out of the ordinary that morning: the red purse she left on the dining table with her phone and wallet, the bright pink lipstick smudge on her chin from a hasty morning routine, and the flustered rush she left in.

But all he can tell the detectives is one thing, spoken over and over again until it tastes bitter on the tip of his tongue: “She was coming back. She said she was coming back.”

The police search for weeks, private detectives for some time after. Eventually, his father chooses to pursue other means of investigation but refuses to tell him what those are. A new portrait of a grieving Gabriel and Adrien hangs above the mantle. The case goes unsolved and remains so.

Adrien becomes Chat Noir eight months later.

There’s still no sign of his mother.

*

Master Fu is attacked while seeking out the next holders of the Ladybug and Chat Noir Miraculous, left on crumbling cement stairs by the Seine. A panting Adrien, running away from home on the first day of school, finds the older man shortly after and calls for emergency services.

He doesn’t remember much from that day, lost in the chaos of purple-black butterflies and public school, but three things do stand out.

It’s the trembling fingers of a wrinkled, liver-spotted hand pressing a wooden box towards him, pleading breathless prayers of _do something_ and _it’s you_. The sound of his own laughter hitting his ears as he leaps across Paris rooftops for the first time, the faux-leather breathing easy as he runs. The harsh set of his father’s lips when Adrien comes home after everything is said and done.

Adrien doesn’t know what became of Master Fu or the rest of the Miraculous afterwards, smoke to the wind just like his mother, but he does know that day kickstarted the best days of his life. He wouldn’t change anything about it.

Being Chat Noir, Paris’s famed superhero, is what he was born to do.

*

Friendship is not written into Adrien’s nature.

Upon learning that Chloe Bourgeois is his only close confidant, people are quick to write him off at Collège Françoise Dupont. No one understands what it’s like to grow up alone—trapped in a mansion that’s become more of a prison than a home since his mother left—with only Chloe at his side. Nino, Alya, and Marinette deciding to take a chance on him that day saves his life.

And so it goes. Study groups and dance parties in Alya’s living room with soda pops and popcorn. Gaming marathons, camped out in Marinette’s bedroom with an endless supply of baked goods and inside jokes. Jam sessions with Nino as they pour over favorite bands and movies with heart-to-hearts that he’s never had before.

Adrien doesn’t know what he’d do without them. They become the support he needs, the friends he’s always wanted, and the light he craves.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t spared the same sadness that lurks around him like a ghost in the night.

Nino and Alya with the weight of akumatization, the way their shoulders slump in permanent defeat, the haunted looks that appear whenever the evacuation notice sounds. Marinette with her heart of gold, the spine that curves under the weight of other’s scrutiny, too afraid to swim in the same sea of love she offers.

But these people? These wonderful, _beautiful_ people?

These are the silver linings that peek through the dark mask of Paris’s only hero.

*

The terror Hawkmoth wreaks is palpable, a dense fog that hangs heavy over Paris. It’s a natural disaster that Adrien can hardly fight on his own, but without his fated partner, there’s little hope in preventing the damages that come with the job.

Chat Noir can only do so much: cleanse akumas and cancel out their effects. He can’t rebuild skyscrapers, sculpt new history, heal the broken. He’s limited by the absence of creation, only hoping to control the chaos that brews in the flutter of the butterflies’ wings.

It’s why close calls are his worst fear.

Marinette runs through the rubble along Rue Cujas, weaving between cement ruin and the skeletons of burned cars. The akuma with wild eyes and fire in its veins hurdles towards her, gaining meters where Marinette can’t make inches. She stumbles, the akuma close, but Chat Noir manages to sweep her away in time.

When he finally drops her on a distant rooftop, there’s no pleasantries. He has both hands on her shoulders, shaking her furiously, fear simmering up and boiling over.

“You think this is a game?” he shouts at her, green eyes wide. “Didn’t you hear the evacuation notice? I have enough trouble fielding Alya during battles; I don’t need to worry about you too.” He doesn’t think about secret identities, about how he shouldn’t be familiar with Marinette.

Marinette is quiet, perhaps taken aback by his fervor. “I-I was at the fabric store. It was attacked, and I had to get away.” She chews her bottom lip. “I think the akuma is in the candle they’re carrying.”

“Thanks,” he says, still shaking. “Please be more careful.”

“At least you were there.” Marinette flashes him a grim smile. “I must be lucky.”

From a couple of streets over, a scream sounds like a gunshot, quick and explosive, and he’s off. Marinette is smart enough to dash for cover, but it still makes him uneasy, the flippant way she treats her safety.

Luck is not written into the law of physics.

Forces do not come together to make moments of serendipity happen. It’s people who cause the vagaries of war, not luck. Life has tragedies, something Adrien knows intimately after he lost his mother, the same way war has casualties, one of the things that he’s prevented thus far, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t near-misses. Today, it was almost Marinette.

But on this battlefield, near-misses are also miracles.

And Marinette?

Marinette has always been his miracle.

*

Eventually, the darkness catches up.

When an office building caves after an earthquake, he’s buried under heaps of twisted metal and broken glass, cement slabs and jagged rebar. Adrien swims between dream and reality, injured and scared, rescue crews above working endlessly to find survivors.

It’s hours before the rubble around him shifts and light falls across face. A girl with midnight hair and starburst eyes peers down at him with a blinding smile—Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

A breathless laugh falls from her lips as she turns to wave for help. “I found Chat Noir! I found him!”

In another world, Chat Noir has Ladybug. She is his other half, the one who makes him feel _not-quite-alone_ , and steals his heart the very first moment he sees her. In this world, Chat Noir is alone, but if he had to pick a Ladybug, Marinette would be his.

Staring at her amongst the chaos, he knows that there is something about her that makes his world turn, something he’d recognize in any universe out there.

Her smile looks like his mother’s.

*

When Adrien wakes up, he is in a hospital room, still wearing his mask, and an elderly man stands in front of him. He knows instinctively that this is Master Fu, the man he made a promise to so long ago.

“You’ve been very brave, Chat Noir,” Master Fu says softly. “More than I could have ever hoped for.”

Tears flood Adrien’s eyes, trickling down his cheeks, thick and slow like candlewax. He remembers crumbled buildings, echoing screams, pain and darkness. “But the akuma,” he says, voice breaking. “There were people in that building.”

Master Fu places a steadying hand on his chest. “Be calm, Adrien. I have found a suitable Ladybug in the time I was away, and the balance has been restored. Paris is fine. The whole city is celebrating.”

“But… all those people?”

“Alive.” Master Fu’s smile is warm.

Adrien’s heart skips a beat, his breath catches, his whole world stops—this isn’t _happening_.

His shock must show because Master Fu sighs, eyes turning sad. “I owe you an apology, my boy. I wasn’t able to choose a Ladybug before Hawkmoth started hunting for me and the rest of the Miraculous; I had to hide. You had to suffer and bear this burden alone, and for that, I am truly sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” is all Adrien can say. He’s too spent for anything else.

There’s silence before Master Fu nods toward the chair beside the bed. “Do you mind if I join you?” Adrien simply shrugs, so the older man takes a seat and folds his arms on the edge of the bed. “I have a story to tell you—one I think you’ll find quite interesting. It’s about the Peacock and its holder, a young woman named Emilie…”

*

On a rooftop, Chat Noir hunches over a folder, ruffling through the papers and making marks with a red pen. He’s too immersed in what he’s doing to notice the girl who sits down next to him until she’s pressing a coffee against his elbow.

“What’cha looking at?” Ladybug asks, all red and black and perfect.

He glances at her with hesitant eyes as he accepts the coffee because this is something entirely for him, and not the city he’s dedicated his life to. “It’s my mother’s case file,” he says. “She’s missing.”

Ladybug is silent for a moment, and something about her expression makes his heart pang in his chest. Suddenly, a wide smile blooms across her face, and she nudges his shoulder with unbridled excitement. “Then let’s find her.”

And somehow, he just knows, that things are exactly how they’re meant to be.


End file.
